High resolved snow height measurements at Neumayer Station, Antarctica, 2013

Antarctica is a continent with a strong character. High wind speeds, very low temperatures and heavy snow storms. All these parameters are well known due to observations and measurements, but precipitation measurements are still rare because the number of manned stations is very limited in Antarctic...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Raffel, Bonnie, König-Langlo, Gert
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2014
Subjects:
AWI_Meteo
AWI_stations
AWI Antarctic Land Expedition
DATE/TIME
Ekström Ice Shelf
Meteorological Long-Term Observations @ AWI
Monitoring station
MONS
SHM
Signal strength
Snow height
Snow Height Sensor
Jenoptik
SHM 30
Antarctic
Kohnen
Kohnen Station
Neumayer
Neumayer Station
Sastrugi
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Shelf
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.831283
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.831283
Description
Summary:Antarctica is a continent with a strong character. High wind speeds, very low temperatures and heavy snow storms. All these parameters are well known due to observations and measurements, but precipitation measurements are still rare because the number of manned stations is very limited in Antarctica. In such a polar snow region many wind driven phenomena associated with snow fall exist like snow drift, blowing snow or sastrugi. Snow drift is defined as a layer of snow formed by the wind during a snowstorm. The horizontal visibility is below eye level. Blowing snow is specified as an ensemble of snow particles raised by the wind to moderate or great heights above the ground; the horizontal visibility at eye level is generally very poor (National Snow And Ice Data Center (NSIDC), 2013). Sastrugi are complex, fragile and sharp ridges or grooves formed on land or over sea ice. They arise from wind erosion, saltation of snow particles and deposition. To get more details about these procedures better instruments than the conventional stake array are required. This small report introduces a new measuring technique and therefore offers a never used dataset of snow heights. It is very common to measure the snow height with a stake array in Antarctica (f.e. Neumayer Station, Kohnen Station) but not with a laser beam. Thus the idea was born to install a new instrument in December 2012 at Neumayer Station.

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